NY State Curriculum Notes     

Japan and the Meiji restoration

1. Human and physical geography

2. The opening of Japan

   a. Commodore Matthew Perry

   b. Impact upon Japan of Treaty of Kanagawa

3. Modernization, industrialization

4. Japan as an imperialist power

   a. First Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895)

   b. Russo-Japanese War

   c. Annexation of Korea

   d. Dependence on world market

TEACHER’S NOTE: Students should analyze the Meiji Restoration in terms of the political, economic, and social changes that were introduced. Students should be able to compare and contrast English and Japanese industrialization. Have students compare industrialization and westernization in Japan and the

Ottoman Empire and other non-Western nations and Europe.

• Why did the Industrial Revolution occur in Japan before other Asian and African nations?

• What caused the conflicts between China, Russia, and Japan?

• What impact did the Russo-Japanese War have on the relative power of Russia? Japan?

• Why did Japan annex Korea? What policies did Japan follow in Korea (1910-1945)?

• How does Japanese imperialism of the past influence Japan’s relations with her Asian neighbors today?

Suggested Documents: Millard Fillmore, Letter to the Emperor of Japan , Ito Hirobumi, Reminiscence on Drafting of the New Constitution, 19th-century Japanese prints showing contact with the West

General Japan Websites

• East Asia History Sourcebook

• Guide to Japan: History.

• National Museum of Japanese History

• Meiji Restoration

• Adaptation-The Meiji restoration in Japan

• Edo Period:1603 - 1867

• Meiji Period: 1868 - 1912

• The Meiji Era and the Modernization of Japan

The Opening of Japan

• Sarashina: The Diary of Lady Sarashina (1009-1059)
• Tokugawa Iemitsu: Closed Country Edict 1635 
• Kaibara Ekken or Kaibara Token: Greater Learning for Women, 1762 
• Honda Toshiaki: A Secret Plan for Government,   excerpts, 1798  
• Commodore Matthew Perry: When We Landed in Japan, 1854 
• Townsend Harris: The President's Letter   Harris was the first US ambassador to Japan.

Modernization and Industrialization

• Sir Edwin Arnold: A Japanese Dinner Party, 1890 

• Alice M. Bacon: How Japanese Ladies Go Shopping, 1890  

• Francis Ottiwell Adams: The Schools of Japan   Description from the mid 19th century

• Japan: Constitution, 1889 

Japan as an Imperialist Power

• Lt. Tadayoshi Sakurai: The Attack upon Port Arthur, 1905  The Japanese adopted Western Imperialism very quickly.

• Russo-Japanese War Research Society

• The Treaty of Portsmouth, 1905 - September 5, 1905.

• Okuma: Fifty Years of New Japan, 1907-08, excerpts 

• Treaty of Annexation of Korea

• Japan's Annexation of Korea: Newspaper account

• Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919, Pres., 1901-1909): The Threat of Japan, 1909 

• The Logic of Japanese Imperialism Japanese imperialism was a logical response to a turbulent and threatening world.